TR- Rarotonga, Cook Islands by way of Auckland, NZ

[Kevo]

Several years ago, while waiting in the checkout line at a grocery store, I saw a magazine with “Places to Go Before You Die" Theme. On the cover was a photo of a gorgeous island landscape. Steep, tropical mountains rising out of teal blue water. I opened the first page to see where the photograph was taken- Rarotonga, Cook Islands.

I’d heard a little about the Cook Islands while living in New Zealand, but never really seen what they looked like or even where they were, except for a vague understanding that they were somewhere in the South Pacific. After seeing that magazine cover, I was sold. I promised myself I’d go to the Cook Islands someday.

This past spring, Jen and I decided to go to Rarotonga this August and see it for ourselves. For a trip like this or even a much bigger trip, commitment is buying the plane ticket. There is only one flight a week that goes from North America to the Cook Islands. The flight leaves LAX on Sunday night, lands Monday morning, and then returns on Saturday night. We wanted more than 5 nights in Rarotonga, so we decided on an alternative itinerary.

We’d fly out from Denver Friday night via LA, land in Auckland Sunday morning, then have a Sunday evening flight that would land in Rarotonga on Saturday evening. On the way back, we’d fly direct to LA from Rarotonga on the next Saturday night and continue back to Denver on Sunday afternoon. Total distance one direction was 9,239 miles on the way out and 5,532 miles on the way back.





Our itinerary left us with a free day in Auckland. We decided that we might as well go bungy jumping from the Auckland Bay Bridge and see the views of the city from the Sky Tower.

After a quick shower at the airport (showers are free, but towels are $10), we took a bus downtown to the Viaduct where we got picked up to go bungy jumping.

The viaduct area of Auckland-


Jen geared up to bungy-






Auckland from the Bay Bridge


The Sky Tower-



Auckland from the Sky Tower









After our short visit in downtown Auckland, we took a bus back to the airport to catch our flight to Rarotonga.

We arrived sometime around 10 pm in Rarotonga and headed to the villa that we had rented at Makayla Palms on Titikavaka Beach. Our villa was beautiful, and came equipped with a full kitchen, BBQ grill, kayaks, scooter and an empty beach next alongside a lagoon, which proved to have the best snorkeling that Jen or I had ever experienced.

We spent the next 7 days exploring the island- snorkeling every day, scootering around, etc.

We cooked most of our own meals, but did find a couple great restaurants. Our hosts recommended a meat importer by the airport called Prime Foods (who supplies the restaurants with meat) to get meat from. Meat there was surprisingly very reasonably priced. We got chicken breast, beef ribeyes and some ground beef to make food for the week and had a supply of duty free wine that we brought over from Auckland, which saved us a lot of money.

Home cooked meals-













Our favorite place to buy food, LBV-



Which comes complete with dog companions to keep you company while you eat-



Scootering-






Up high overlooking the island-



Snorkeling-



Our little corner of paradise-






Hermit crab-



Only 100,000 people visit the entire country of the Cook Islands each year. While no area was crowded by any means, our villa was located in a particularly empty part of Rarotonga. There was literally no one on the beach-






…Except for these dogs, who kinda roamed around on their own and came by to say hi between their fishing excursions-






Fishing-



Interior roads look like this-






Interior island views-



We found a place called Black Rock on the NW corner of the island that we visited repeatedly for sunset views-

[Kevo]

There was an beautiful garden across from our villa-





















We attended a couple cultural shows.

Jen learning to chop coconuts-


A Moari holy site, where human sacrifices once took place-






Moari dancing-


Other than that, we just spent our time checking out the island, kayaking and snorkeling.


Black Rock during the day-



Titikaveka Lagoon. Our villa is in the trees-









Titikaveka Lagoon Panorama


Here's a link to the full size image- http://i.imgur.com/SnCWW9b.jpg


Sunset on the lagoon-



Since there was no one around, we had to take some self timer shots-












I expected the week to fly by, but since we were at a slower pace of life, it didn’t seem too fast. We made it the entire week without connecting to the internet.

On our last night, we went back to Black Rock to watch the sunset-















We didn’t see the sun again until we were in LA the next day.

Jake Numanga, who has been welcoming and saying goodbye to everyone who goes through the Rarotonga Airport for 20+ years-


The trip was pretty incredible. I couldn’t have expected it to go any better- there wasn’t a single hang up the entire time.

Our villa at Makayla Palms was awesome, and our hosts John and Rachel were amazing. They have done an incredible job building their villas and took care of everything we needed as well as providing us with fresh fruit and home baked treats.

Rarotonga felt like a mix of Hawaii, Fiji and the Virgin Islands, but slightly cooler temps. The water was a bit cooler than Hawaii, so we were glad to have wetsuit tops for extended snorkeling excursions. Air temps during the day never got above 75 degrees, but there was often a nice trade wind breeze.

The snorkeling was the best I'd ever experienced. The diversity of life right off the beach blew me away. I have some GoPro footage that I need to sort through, but there were more fish, and more species of fish than I've seen anywhere else in the world. The coral reef was equally impressive.

Rarotonga has a bit colonial feeling still- people seem to be proud of their Moari and/or British heritage. Everyone we came across was very friendly and laid back, making the island a perfect place to unplug, unwind and relax.

Perhaps most importantly was the reminder of how fun international travel is and how a dream can come to fruition by taking simple steps- commitment IS buying the plane ticket. Take that first step, and everything else seems to fall into place.

[LightRanger]

Wow. Awesome TR. Thanks man.

[ate'em]

awesome. love to see the snorkeling footage. thanks for sharing such a remote place

[cramer]

There was an beautiful garden across from our villa-





















We attended a couple cultural shows.

Jen learning to chop coconuts-


A Moari holy site, where human sacrifices once took place-






Moari dancing-


Other than that, we just spent our time checking out the island, kayaking and snorkeling.


Black Rock during the day-



Titikaveka Lagoon. Our villa is in the trees-









Titikaveka Lagoon Panorama


Here's a link to the full size image- http://i.imgur.com/SnCWW9b.jpg


Sunset on the lagoon-



Since there was no one around, we had to take some self timer shots-












I expected the week to fly by, but since we were at a slower pace of life, it didn’t seem too fast. We made it the entire week without connecting to the internet.

On our last night, we went back to Black Rock to watch the sunset-















We didn’t see the sun again until we were in LA the next day.

Jake Numanga, who has been welcoming and saying goodbye to everyone who goes through the Rarotonga Airport-


The trip was pretty incredible. I couldn’t have expected it to go any better- there wasn’t a single hang up the entire time.

Our villa at Makayla Palms was awesome, and our hosts John and Rachel were amazing. They have done an incredible job building their villas and took care of everything we needed as well as providing us with fresh fruit and home baked treats.

Rarotonga felt like a mix of Hawaii, Fiji and the Virgin Islands, but slightly cooler temps. The water was a bit cooler than Hawaii, so we were glad to have wetsuit tops for extended snorkeling excursions. Air temps during the day never got above 75 degrees, but there was often a nice trade wind breeze.

The snorkeling was the best I'd ever experienced. The diversity of life right off the beach blew me away. I have some GoPro footage that I need to sort through, but there were more fish, and more species of fish than I've seen anywhere else in the world. The coral reef was equally impressive.

Rarotonga has a bit colonial feeling still- people seem to be proud of their Moari and/or British heritage. Everyone we came across was very friendly and laid back, making the island a perfect place to unplug, unwind and relax.

Perhaps most importantly was the reminder of how fun international travel is and how a dream can come to fruition by taking simple steps- commitment IS buying the plane ticket. Take that first step, and everything else seems to fall into place.

Thats pretty amazing, thanks for sharing. How long is the flight out of LA?

[splat]

Cool tr, Kevo.

[Art Shirk]

Thanks for sharing this. Awesome.

[smmokan]

Reminds me a lot of Huahine in French Polynesia. Raro and Aitutaki are definitely on my list of places to visit soon.

[Tye 1on]

well played sir- FKNA!!!!

[Mazderati]

Excellent.

[huckbucket]

Such an awesome looking trip. Thanks for the writeup.

[mtnbiker/boarder]

sweetass trip.. thanx

[Dhelihiker]

Hell yeah, that looks great!

[TWINS]

One of the best trip reports I have read here Just makes me want to go there.Thankyou for taking the time to post it up.
I will be showing this to my wife /on the bucket list.

[Shadam]

imagine if those mtns got snow ???

kinda funny the only TR from the southern hemisphere winter is of tropical islands ...

great work ...

[Kevo]

awesome. love to see the snorkeling footage. thanks for sharing such a remote place

Thanks- I really need to brush up on video editing. I have some cool footage of an eel on the GoPro.

Thats pretty amazing, thanks for sharing. How long is the flight out of LA?

I believe LAX-AKL is about 12 hours. You can also fly direct from SFO-AKL, which I've done before. Believe it or not, SFO-AKL is only 12 miles longer than LAX-AKL.

Reminds me a lot of Huahine in French Polynesia. Raro and Aitutaki are definitely on my list of places to visit soon.

You're definitely going to need to check it out. Aitutaki is on my list as well

[stuckathuntermtn]

We're gonna need some more of Jenn. Clothing optional.

[leftfield]

Great TR, thanks

[Cruiser]

Thanks for taking the time to post those shots up Kevo. Fantastic stuff!

Sent from my Nexus 7 using TGR Forums

[Danno]

Well played, Kevo, well played.

[Fuzz]

Great TR! Looks like a lot of fun.

[The AD]

Looks like an awesome relaxing spot. I'm sure the flights are expensive, but how expensive is it once you get to the island?

[Kevo]

Looks like an awesome relaxing spot. I'm sure the flights are expensive, but how expensive is it once you get to the island?

I'd imagine somewhere about here on the scale of other beaches I can remember going to-

Thailand----------Fiji---Rarotonga-------Virgin Islands--Hawaii

The scale is subjective, because you can easily spend $500+ a night in Fiji or Thailand. I was spending $7-15 a night in Thailand and about $70 for a dorm room in Fiji with 3 meals a day.

We rented the villa for about $200 USD per day, which wasn't too bad considering we had a beach to ourselves, plus full kitchen, scooter, kayaks, etc. I can't imagine how expensive a comparable place would be in French Polynesia or Hawaii or the Bahamas. It is more expensive than Thailand/ SE Asia, but the beach was a lot nicer than most Thai beaches.

We were prepared for food to be expensive, but meat prices were as good or better than the US. We got some great beef ribeyes for about $8 USD/lb. Since we cooked most meals on our own, we didn't spend much on food.

We ate out at nicer restaurants two nights. Prices came out to about $30 USD/person for dinner and drinks- probably on par or a little cheaper than what a similar place would charge back home. More expensive than SE Asia, but cheaper than most US holiday destinations.

[jtran10]

awesome TR

[Tippster]

Beach sex!

Nice TR. Thanks!